Olivia Munn Claims Hollywood Tried To Buy Her Silence Over On-Set Trauma

Olivia Munn is speaking out about a traumatic experience she endured while working on a film set, revealing that she was offered over $1 million to keep quiet about it.

During an appearance on Monica Lewinsky’s "Reclaiming" podcast, Olivia Munn reflected on how her tumultuous upbringing shaped her values and influenced how she handled difficult situations throughout her career.

The actress explained that she was relentlessly bullied as a child, which led her to develop a fierce sense of justice that carried into adulthood.

“Things were really black and white for me, and I would make decisions without thinking them through enough,” she shared. “I just was like, ‘This is wrong, this is right,’ and I would never really be able to see the gray.”

Munn pointed to a specific moment in her career that put those values to the test. While she did not name the project or the individuals involved, she recalled an experience on set that she found deeply upsetting.

“There were other things that happened on this movie set personally to me that was really not OK, and it was so traumatic that I had to file complaints with the studio,” Munn revealed.

She also noted that there were other red flags on set but did not go into detail about the situation.

“But it got to this place where I was offered a lot of money,” she continued. “A lot of money, seven figures, to accept, I guess, their apology and them taking acknowledgment of it.” However, the payout came with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

While Munn had no intention of publicly discussing the situation at the time, she said she immediately refused to sign an NDA on principle.

“Not that I would ever have talked about it, truly, because I just wanted to move past it all,” she explained. “That’s why I don’t want to talk about the specific things that happened in that situation. But I said, ‘I’m not signing an NDA,’ and they said, ‘You have to,’ and I just felt that it was so wrong.”

What made the situation even more frustrating for her was the timing, as it happened at the height of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement.

“This was, like, the reckoning, the Harvey Weinstein reckoning that began it all,” she said. “This was that time period, and this was when people were targeting anyone who signed an NDA saying, ‘Oh, you only did it for the money.’”

Munn feared that if she agreed to the payout, the studio could leak the NDA in an effort to discredit her voice.

Despite the significant amount of money on the table, Munn didn’t hesitate to walk away.

“I turned to my lawyer and I said, ‘I’m not taking it,’” she recalled. “I told my lawyer, ‘I’m just not gonna do it. I want to say no now.’ And he was like, ‘Let’s think about it.’ And I said, ‘I want to say no now!’”

Her frustration over the offer overpowered any temptation to negotiate or reconsider. “That comes into the feistiness of not thinking things through and being so upset and frustrated that this would be offered to me that I did not think about negotiating, I did not think about anything besides how disrespectful that was.”

Even though the studio’s lawyers thought she was making a mistake, Munn walked out without regret.

“I said to him, ‘I know this is a lot of money to you, but it is not a lot of money to me to lose my voice,’” she reflected. “And we walked out of there, and I remember feeling so proud when I walked out, so proud of myself.”

Looking back, Munn doesn’t regret her decision but acknowledges that her reaction was fueled by anger.

“Look, was it the right thing to do and do the people in my life think that I did the right thing and are proud of me for that? Yes,” she said. “It’s not that I wouldn’t have ended up with the same decision, it’s that I made that decision based on anger, and that is something I had to learn how to rein in and use for my benefit.”

Though Munn remained silent about this situation until now, she has never shied away from speaking out against injustices in the entertainment industry. And with this revelation, she continues to show that she won’t be silenced, no matter the price.